11
The sun was a blood orange, a fiery orb just visible in between the dense trees as Ellery and Jimmy Tipton retraced her steps the night she had found Julia Parker’s hands. “Your dog sure can pick ’em,” Tipton grumbled as he pushed aside some brambles. Branches hung down around them, snapped off by the force of the recent storm. “He couldn’t just have used the sidewalk?”
“He usually sticks to the trail, but this is a more direct route. Guess he was in a hurry.” The ground was soft beneath her feet, a blanket of wet leaves and pine needles. She called up a vision of Bump in the moonlight, forging on ahead with his tail held high and his nose to the ground, like he’d been scenting something. She followed his ghost through the woods and into the clearing that marked the Ingrams’ backyard. “This is where we came out,” she told Tipton as he came to stand next to her. “It took a couple of minutes before we saw the hands.”
Tipton walked over to the place where the grass met the cement patio. “Her hands were here,” he said, nodding down at the ground. “What else did you see?”
“What else? Nothing. It was dark. No one was home.”
“I know that,” he replied, sounding irritated. “I mean did you see or hear anything on your way over here, or while you were standing here—anything else that seemed out of place?”
She stared at him. “I don’t know, Tipton. Once we saw the hands we pretty much focused in on those. There wasn’t any other obvious disturbance, if that’s what you’re asking. Why?”
Tipton cocked his head a moment and then scanned the tree line at the back of the yard. The fading light cast deep shadows across the grass. “We found a footprint over there near the edge of the woods—a man’s boot print size eleven. It had to be fresh, with all the rain we just had, and your buddy Agent Markham was wearing loafers that night. It obviously didn’t come from the Ingrams since they weren’t at home. On top of that, the putty used to hold up the hands on the pavement was still wet. They can’t have been sitting here very long before you stumbled on ’em.”
“You’re saying we just missed him. That he might have been here that night in the woods, watching the whole thing.”
Tipton squinted into the trees. “It seems possible, yeah. You’re sure you didn’t hear anything?”
“No,” she murmured, feeling suddenly exposed in front of the thick wall of trees. “There was nothing.” But as they tramped back through the woods, she considered that maybe Bump hadn’t been scenting his favorite poodle or Julia’s hands at all; perhaps he had been on the trail of the killer.
Back at her house, Tipton seemed reluctant to get into his squad car and drive away. “I don’t like you out here by yourself with the possibility that someone is creeping around in these woods,” he said. “We already know this guy takes an unhealthy interest in you. Maybe I should stick around just in case.”
It might have been a sincere offer, but what Ellie heard was the note of hope in his voice. I’ll stick around and maybe bust a serial killer in the process. “No thanks,” she told him firmly. “I’ll be just fine. Besides, Reed should be coming back any minute now.” In fact, Reed should have beaten them to the house, and she was a little confused about where he could have gone.
“Well, all right,” Tipton said with a last look at her house. “You know the number to call if he comes back around again.”
“I’ve got his number right here,” she replied, patting her sidearm.
Tipton snorted in appreciation of her bravado. “Don’t try to be some kind of hero, Hathaway.” The implication, of course, was, as if you really could. “You don’t know the kind of dangerous animal you’re dealing with here.”
“I know exactly what he is,” she replied tartly. “I met his mentor—you know, the original—and I lived to tell about it.”
Tipton frowned at the reminder that her knowledge in this area soundly trumped his own. “Yeah, well, just watch yourself,” he mumbled as he drew out his keys and walked to his car. “I’d hate to be finding your hands chopped off next.”
Ellie stood at the bottom of her front porch and watched him drive off, the red taillights growing smaller in the distance as the sound of his engine grew fainter and fainter, until at last it was quiet again. Her yard looked particularly empty without her truck sitting in it, and she took out her phone as she mounted the steps to her house. No messages from Reed, so she dialed his number as she fiddled with the lock. The phone rang straight through to voice mail. She left a brief message to call her and went to the kitchen for a drink. The back of the house looked out toward the black woods, but Ellie saw only her own tired reflection in the windowpane. She downed two straight glasses of water and took out her phone again. This time, she called Brady at the shelter.
“Hey,” she said when she reached him. “Is Reed there?”
“Reed? Haven’t seen him. Why?”
“He was supposed to pick up Bump like an hour ago now.” She checked the clock on her wall. “Actually, more like two. You’re saying he hasn’t been by?”
“No, and I have Bump right here with me. Say hello, dog breath.”
Ellery heard snuffling and a soft whine on the other end. “I don’t understand. He should’ve been there and back by now.”
“Did you call him? Maybe he had car trouble.”
“He’s got my truck,” she replied. “And he’s not answering his phone.”
“Beats me, then. Maybe he had some hot lead he needed to follow up right away. That’s a thing you guys do, right? Follow hot leads?”
“I guess. Maybe.” Ellery paced the house, looking out the front windows now in case Reed was coming up the driveway. “Listen, I’d come get Bump myself, but like I said, Reed has my truck.”
“No problem,” Brady said easily. “I’ll just swing by and drop him off. Say in a half hour?”
“That would be great,” Ellie said with relief. “Thank you.” She was still watching out the windows. The long expanse of driveway and the thicket of trees hiding her house from the road normally felt cozy and reassuring, but at that moment, they seemed dark and isolating. She hung up with Brady and went to sit on the couch in front of all the notes she and Reed had made the night before from the Coben files. He had taken the most promising names to track down today, leaving behind statements from people who were too young or too female to be their current perpetrator. Ellery picked through the pages. A few names she recognized as neighbors from the apartment building where she’d grown up and where her mother still resided.
I seen that girl out riding her bike at night all the time, Mariela Hernandez’s statement read. Too dangerous for a young girl like that. Where was her mother?
Another neighbor: Shame what happened to that family. The father takes off, then the boy got sick. Now this. Some people are just cursed, I guess.
Ellery didn’t believe much in curses, but she had seen tragedy beget tragedy enough times to know it wasn’t a simple matter of bad luck either. When your whole world blew apart, the shrapnel sprayed far and wide, taking out anyone in its path. She rubbed her tired eyes and tried to focus on the concrete details in the statements rather than any editorializing. The sheer volume of the material made it hard to parse. One woman saw a red car. Another woman reported a suspicious Asian-looking man hanging around on the corner. None of it was remotely helpful, and Ellery plucked up another sheet with a sigh. This one was Virginia Willett again, dutifully recounting “the pervert” who harassed her young nephew and his friends in the neighborhood park. “Maybe the pervert saw something useful,” Ellie muttered as she tossed the paper aside.
She tried Reed on her cell phone once more but got his outgoing message in reply. It had been only a few hours since she’d seen him, but under the circumstances she felt right to be concerned. If he still hadn’t checked in by the time Brady dropped by with Bump, Ellie resolved to call in the troops to help look for him. In the meantime, she decided to take a quick shower to rinse off the grime and sweat she had accumulat
ed from traipsing about in woods. It was hot in the house, but she didn’t dare unlock the windows to air it out. She shut the blinds and stripped her grubby clothes to the floor, leaving her gun in its holster on her dresser. She took clean shorts and a T-shirt with her to the bathroom, where she ducked under and out of the hot spray in less than five minutes. Even still, she barely had time to redress and towel-dry her hair before she heard a knock at her front door. A quick check of her peephole told her it was Brady and Bump on the other side.
The heavy wooden door had to be yanked open from where it had swollen up with the humidity. “Hi,” she said, feeling somewhat self-conscious because Brady had never been to her home before. Bump surged through the open door and into the house, prancing about and snuffling her legs. Brady, on the other end of the leash, had little choice but to follow. “Please excuse the mess right now,” Ellery said as she accepted the lead from Brady.
“Hey, don’t worry about it. You should see my place.”
She realized suddenly she never had and that maybe this was weird. Brady was drinking in this new opportunity, though, looking around at her walls and the chair that was half covered in Reed’s clothing. His gaze went to the coffee table and the piles of paper scattered across it. “That’s about Coben?” he asked, perking up in interest at the black-and-white picture of the killer that graced the top of one stack.
“Old files, yeah,” she said as she ran a hand through her damp hair and then moved to shut the folder. “I can’t really discuss it.” At her feet, Bump was twining figure eights in and out of her legs, tangling her in the leash, so she bent down to unhook him. Bump whined and pawed at her as she rubbed his ears. “You missed me, huh?” she asked. “I hope he wasn’t too much trouble.”
“The Bumpmeister? Nah.” Brady had made a slow circle around her front room, pausing to study the art on her walls and the porcelain hedgehog figurine that she kept on her mantel. It had been a housewarming gift from her mother, one of the few presents from her mom that she ever really liked. She hadn’t talked to her mother in weeks, not since this whole thing began, she realized, and then Ellery had to swallow back the sudden lump in her throat. “You don’t keep family pictures around, huh?” Brady asked, jerking her attention back to him. “Me either.”
“Not even your aunt?” Ellie asked. She searched her memory for the name of the woman who had taken over raising Brady. “Ginny?” Bump pawed at her again, whining and nudging her leg with his soft muzzle. “What is up with you this evening?” she asked him as she tried to put a few inches of space between her and the dog. She cast an anxious glance toward the window but saw no sign that Reed was on his way up the drive.
“Still nothing from Reed?” Brady asked, following her gaze.
“No, and I’m starting to worry. He should have called by now.”
There was an awkward pause. “I’m sure he’ll turn up,” Brady said finally.
She supposed she should be a good hostess and offer him a drink or something, but mostly she wanted him to be on his way so she could go look for Reed. Still, he had watched her dog for the better part of two days. One beer wouldn’t make a difference. “Can I get you something? Iced tea? Beer?”
“Glass of ice water would be great,” he said, flashing her a smile. “Mind if I use your washroom?”
“Sure, that’s fine,” Ellie said, distracted by her worry for Reed as she headed for the kitchen to fetch the water. Bump followed her, whimpering and pawing at the floor. She heard Brady’s footsteps disappear into the back of the house and it was then she realized she’d never told him where the bathroom was. He just seemed to know.
Fear broke out like a rash on the back of her neck, and Ellery froze at the sink with the water still running. You’re being ridiculous, she told her reflection in the window. You’re just suspecting everyone now.
But the fear kept going now that it had its hooks into her, pricking her memory, opening it up in new directions. Brady could draw—really well. Reed had gone to see Brady earlier and had not returned. Bump, in pursuit through the woods the other night, had his eager tail held high, as though he was off to find a friend. She had felt familiar with Brady even when they first met, in part because they spoke the same vocabulary. Pop for soda. What a Grabowski! Can I use your washroom?
A horrible thought struck her and she raced to the coffee table to find that statement from Virginia Willett about her nine-year-old nephew. Brady would have been around nine back then. Aunt Ginny, he called her. Virginia. Her heart raced as she sifted through the papers until she found the right one. She scanned it quickly but found no mention of the boy’s name. Maybe it wasn’t true.
She heard a noise from the other side of the house and realized with a start that she did not have her gun. It was in her bedroom on the dresser. Slowly, she started for the hall, listening for his presence. “Brady…?”
“Yeah?” His voice was coming from inside the washroom.
Her heart lurched in her chest and she forced herself to sound casual. “Your aunt Ginny … did she live in Texas like your mom?”
Ellery crept along the hall but Bump was following her, his nails scratching all the way. “Why do you ask?” Brady called back. She heard water running in the sink.
“Just curious!” She turned her head when she spoke so that it didn’t sound like she was edging past the bathroom door. When she reached the other side, she picked up her pace and ran to her bedroom to fetch her holster. She picked it up with shaking fingers and found that it was empty. Her stomach dropped even before Brady appeared in the doorway behind her.
“Ginny lived in Chicago,” he said, his voice still friendly.
She turned around and saw him holding her gun.
He smiled as he weighed the weapon in his hands. “But I’m guessing you’ve finally figured that out.”
Bump sat directly on her feet and growled. “What are you doing, Brady?” she asked, struggling to keep calm.
“My name’s not Brady,” he told her flatly, all the light gone from his eyes. “It’s William. William Willett. And you, of course, are Abigail. Finally we can tell each other the whole truth, huh? God, you don’t know how long I’ve waited for you to figure it out.”
She searched his face and her memory for any trace of recognition. “I knew you before?” she asked finally.
“No. No, you never looked at me back then. Nobody did. That’s why no one noticed me on the street that night when Coben grabbed you.”
“You saw it happen,” she whispered, remembering the drawing. She was careful to hide her revulsion, and he nodded.
“I was standing just across the street near some steps and you never even knew it. I thought that stuff was made up, like on TV or in the movies, but there he was, getting out of his car and just taking another person like it was his right. It was amazing—the most exciting thing I’d ever seen.”
Her stomach quivered. “Brady,” she said, “where is Reed?”
“Somewhere safe,” he replied, looking her up and down. “I kept waiting for you to recognize me. For you to feel the connection we made back then. He looked at me, you know. He saw me when he took you, and we shared this look, like it was our secret … like you belonged to both of us now.”
“He,” she repeated, her gaze alternating between his face and the gun. “You mean Coben saw you.”
“Yeah, he looked over and he saw me watching, and he just went like this…” Brady raised a finger to his lips. “He knew. He knew I would never tell. So I’ve been trying to find other ways to let you know I was here, sending you signals about that night, but you never seemed to pick up on them.” He was petulant and irritated with her now.
“You sent me the birthday cards,” she said suddenly, and he shot her a glare. She felt stupid at how obvious it was now. He was one of the few people close enough to steal her DNA. “Right, of course you sent them. I realized they were connected to the disappearances, but I didn’t realize it was you.” She swallowed hard. “You sh
ould have just told me.”
“Weren’t you listening to what I just said?” He waved the gun at her angrily. “I promised not to tell.”
“I don’t understand. You’ve been following me since that night?”
He looked at her like she was an idiot.”Of course not. I was a little kid back then. I watched all the TV coverage, though—watched when they took over Coben’s farm where he killed the girls, watched the cops give updates on your condition. After you were released, I used to walk past your apartment building, figuring I would get to see you, but you didn’t come outside anymore.”
Ellie’s hand went to her throat as she remembered the rest of that awful summer, stuck inside the stifling apartment as her mother made trips back and forth to the hospital to see Daniel.
“Then my mom’s boyfriend of the month dumped her, and she decided she wanted me back in Texas, so Aunt Ginny had to ship me back down there. I didn’t see you again for years.”
She licked her dry lips. “How? How did you find me?” It didn’t matter much at the moment, but as long as he was talking to her she had more time to think. Reed. Where was Reed? She’d unwittingly sent him off to rendezvous with a serial killer. Maybe he was still alive, but she bet he wasn’t in great shape if Brady felt confident enough to leave him. She had a flash of Julia’s severed hands, raised as if in surrender, and barely held back a dry heave.
Brady was watching her face intently, a hint of amusement in his eyes. “It wasn’t that difficult since you didn’t bother changing your last name,” he told her. “But your friend Agent Markham helped a lot. That book of his was super informative, particularly the update at the end when he mentioned you had switched schools but your basketball team won a state championship. Once he pointed me where to look, it was easy as pie to track you down.” He gave her a sardonic smile. “Then it was just a matter of waiting for us to get reacquainted.”
The Vanishing Season Page 24
